Villain biography

Evil character or person

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Villain (disambiguation), Villainy (disambiguation), Bad Guy (disambiguation), and Badman (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with the feudal term Villein.

A villain (also known as a "black hat" or "bad guy"; the feminine form is villainess) is a stock character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines such a character as "a cruellymalicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; or a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evilagency in the plot".^[1] The antonym of a villain is a hero.

The villain's structural purpose is to serve as the opposite to the hero character, and their motives or evil actions drive a plot along.^[2] In contrast to the hero, who is defined by feats of ingenuity and bravery and the pur